FTC team of workers Reportedly wished To convey Antitrust Case against Google
Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, (March 19, 2015)
Some staff at the Federal trade fee wished to carry an antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Google in 2012, in keeping with documents got by The Wall street Journal.
The newspaper suggested on Thursday that FTC staff found proof that Google leveraged its dominance in search to hurt other firms. The Journal said it obtained a section of an FTC body of workers file after the company mistakenly released it in response to a Freedom of information Act request.
FTC staff reportedly wanted to sue over three alleged practices by way of Google, including taking content from Yelp, TripAdvisor and Amazon. the hunt large allegedly did so as a way to boost its personal sites. The FTC personnel file also reveals that Google estimated its market share as between sixty nine% and 84% during the investigation.
In January of 2013 the FTC closed its investigation into Google without bringing an enforcement action. however former chairman Jon Leibowitz stated at the time that Google had taken steps to alleviate concern over “troubling allegations” that it misappropriated opponents’ content material.
“Google allegedly ‘scraped’ the user-generated critiques of native restaurants displayed on Yelp, and led shoppers to believe that these reviews had been its own. When some of these web pages complained to Google about this follow, Google allegedly threatened to remove them totally from Google’s search outcomes,” Leibowitz mentioned.
To get to the bottom of challenge about these allegations, Google promised to permit companies to choose out of showing within the vertical serps — like Google local — however still exhibit up in the normal search outcomes.
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